Just as a tease -- before posting some of the INCREDIBLE pics of the humpbacks we saw -- here's a shot of the just-as-awesome scenery in-and-around Auke Bay. What a most beautiful landscape!
A fishing boat headed out of Auke Bay -- what incredible scenery!
Our whale-watching boat is the one on the left. Two decks, the top one wide-open, which is where I spent most of my time with my Canon EOS Rebel.
Looking back at Auke Bay...Mendenhall Glacier is in the background.
Another whale-watching tour boat...a bit smaller than ours.
Our first sighting! Boy, was I ever excited! I managed to catch this humpback's fluke as it was headed down. I've got some better fluke shots coming up.
What's a fluke, you ask? Well, so much diversity exists among whale species that some have only the most basic traits in common with others -- and flukes are among them. Flukes are the two lobes of the whale's tail. While each whale has flukes, flukes themselves differ from species to species. In some whale species, flukes are so distinctive researchers use them like fingerprints to identify individuals. On our whale-watching tour, our skipper spotted a female and immediately identified her as an individual that was born in Auke Bay, came back and eventually had her own baby, and has been coming back to the Bay each and every year for about 12 years. We followed her around for about an hour -- and I got some great pics.
Here's a shot of that female as she surfaced to blow. Pretty close to the boat, eh? The skipper tipped us photo dogs off to the whale's routine. Come up and blow about three times in a row. Just a gentle roll (like in the pic). About 2-3 minutes between rolls. Usually after that third roll the whale would head deep and show its fluke. Got some cool shots! Check out the next two pics.
I really like this shot -- think I got it just right!
One more fishing boat headed out into that awesome scenery!
A shot of our "sister" tour boat (same outfit) -- looking for humpbacks just like we were. And there's another fishing boat in the background.
We also spotted several eagles during our day of whale-watching (I have a separate blog entry for all those pics), and I thought I'd provide a "teaser" or two of the first one we spotted. You can see the eagle hanging out on that small rock cropping, left of center. Then I caught it as it took off! Great shot!
Thought I'd throw in a shot of a glacier that I spotted in the distance -- not sure of its name, but beautiful just the same.
Here's a trio of fluke shots that I think we some of the best ones I got all day. Except for the ones at the end of this blog of a humpback feeding.
These next few shots show a humpback feeding. Our skipper once again tipped us off to some birds that would gather above a humpback that was submerged and "blowing bubbles of air" up, pushing krill and other critters the humpback eats to the top of the water. As the humpback got ready to surface, the birds would get all excited and dive almost into the jaws of the humpback as it opened its huge jaws to take in a gulp of krill. Pretty neat thing to watch, let me tell you.
Humpback's mouth wide open at this point.
Humpback finishing its big gulp and crashing back into the water.
Humpback about to crash back into the water! Incredible scene to watch!
Whale breaching. Scientists aren't sure why whales breach (jump out of the water), but humpbacks do it with some frequency. Our skipper was just as excited as we were when this humpback breached not far from our tour boat. And it happened so fast that all I got was the last little bit of the whole thing. But still pretty exciting to witness and we were all talking about it as we headed home for the day.
Last sequence of this whale-watching blog entry. On our way back to the dock in Auke Bay, we spotted one more humpback close to the shoreline of a small island. Our skipper said the waters drop off fairly steeply from the shore line, so the humpback can come fairly close to the shore.
So, that's it. Pretty incredible, yes? We thoroughly enjoyed our full day of sightseeing at Mendenhall Glacier and then whale-watching out of Auke Bay. If any of our blog readers ever get to this part of Alaska, and especially the Juneau area, do yourself a big favor and book a whale-watching tour. You will be treated to not only some spectacular scenery, but also some of Alaska's most breathtaking wildlife.
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